SCC Blog

Super Feedback

February 13th, 2009

In the days (sometimes hours) immediately following the Super Bowl, a host of experts from throughout business and marketing world will attempt to assess the effectiveness of commercials aired during the telecast of the big game.  After all, that’s a large part of the fun and hype that surrounds the Super Bowl.  If you think about it, that buzz generated after the game is one of the factors that helped drive the price for a thirty second commercial upwards of $3 million for Super Bowl XLIII.  This year, we decided to jump into the fray and partake in the evaluation process and opted to attempt to determine how the ads were received by consumers in the 15-18 age demographic.

To generate feedback, we commissioned a rather informal survey to a random sample of high school business and marketing teachers throughout the country.  The study featured representation from Western states (Oregon, Washington, Colorado, California), the Midwest (Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, Oklahoma) and the East Coast (New York, Virginia).  In all, over 425 students participated in the poll (a HUGE thank you is in order to those schools and students who participated so THANK YOU).

By contemporary standards, our survey was very basic.  For each of the ads in this year’s Super Bowl, we asked whether students “liked”, “disliked”, or had “no opinion” of the commercial (individually).  We also asked each class (as a group) several questions specifically relating to individual ads.  The purpose of this week’s blog entry is to share the results of this survey with our readers.

The disclaimer to this post is that this survey is in no way, shape or form and “official” study and the results should not be interpreted as such.  In fact, we would encourage you to utilize the data presented as a class discussion tool, encouraging your students to draw their own conclusions from the information provided.

Survey Results

The Winners (this year’s most popular ads based which commercials had the highest percentage of students suggest they “liked” the ad)

1) Doritos “Snow Globe” - 94.3% of those surveyed “liked” the ad while less than 4% indicated they “disliked” the ad.  Only 1.6% of respondents had no opinion.

2) E*TRADE “Babies” - 80.2% of those surveyed “liked” the ad, 7.4% indicated they “disliked” the ad and 12.3% of respondents had no opinion.

3) CareerBuilder.com “Hate Work” - 78.8% of those surveyed “liked” the ad, 15% said they “disliked” the ad and just 6% of those surveyed had no opinion.

Honorable Mention (based on which commercials had the highest percentage of students suggest they “liked” the ad)

Bud Light “Office Meeting” - The first ad in this year’s Super Bowl was met with success as 76.1% of those surveyed “liked” the ad, only 7.8% said they “disliked” the ad and 16.2% of respondents had no opinion.

Bridgestone “Moon Dancers” - 75.6% of those surveyed “liked” the ad, 10.1% said they “disliked” the ad and just 14.2% of those surveyed had no opinion.

Doritos “Bus” - Doritos scores again as 73.8% of those surveyed “liked” the “Bus” ad, only 11.7% said they “disliked” the ad and 14.5% of respondents had no opinion.

The Losers (this year’s least popular ads based which commercials had the lowest percentage of students suggest they “liked” the ad)

1) Vizio “HD TV” - Only 6.6% of our survey participants “liked” the Vizio ad while a whopping 62% indicated they “disliked” the ad.  31.5% of respondents had no opinion.

2) Toyota “Venza” - Just 7.8% of respondents indicated they “liked” the “Venza” ad while 53% suggested they “disliked” the ad.  39.2% of the students surveyed had no opinion.

3) H&R Block “Grim Reaper” - A meager 16% of our survey participants “liked” this ad from H&R Block while 37.6% “disliked” it.  Nearly half the participants (46.4%) had no opinion. 

Additional Results

In addition to providing a response to each ad that aired during the Super Bowl telecast, our survey featured a number of specific questions in an effort to measure ad effectiveness.

The first question was designed to determine whether students enjoyed the commercials that aired in 3-D for which we got a mixed response.  44% of respondents indicated that they liked the ads, but had higher expectations while 33% did not like the ads at all.  Of the students who participated in the survey, 22% were not able to view the ads in their 3-D format because they did not have the 3-D glasses.

The next question asked whether any of this year’s movie ads would inspire those surveyed to go see it in the theater.  Clearly, this was a pretty generic question with limitations as classes were not asked to specifically identify which movie(s) they hoped to see.  That said, every class that participated in the survey had at least one student who saw an ad promoting an upcoming film that indicated he or she would plan to see it in the theater. 

The question was also posed whether the commercials made students want to purchase products featured in the ads.  77% of the classrooms said yes (meaning at least one student in the class was indeed influenced by the ad).  Again, participants were not asked to specify which products, but several volunteered that information anyway.  Most suggested Doritos, several others mentioned Coke, Pepsi, Taco Bell, Audi and Cheetos.

By now, most of you have heard the buzz surrounding Denny’s offer for a free breakfast.  Naturally, we were curious to see if students noticed and whether any of them would take advantage of the offer.  Of the classrooms who participated in the survey (one school did not qualify because they did not have a Denny’s in the area), 90% said yes, at least one student dined at Denny’s “on-the-house”. 

As for the Coke ad featuring Steelers’ star safety Troy Polamalu in a reprise of the legendary 1979 ad with “Mean” Joe Greene, only 42% of participants were able to make the connection, citing they “didn’t get it”.  However, participants didn’t necessarily need to make the connection to enjoy the ad with over half (53%) of participants indicating they “liked” the ad.  29% of those surveyed had no opinion while 18% suggested they “disliked” the spot.

Expert Reviews (By Comparison)

Each year USA Today tracks the success rate of Super Bowl ads with their annual “AdMeter” by a panel of viewers and ranks ads from best to worst.  This year, the Doritos “Snow Globe” took home top honors, impressive because they dislodged Anheuser-Busch from the top spot (which it held for the last ten years).  Even more impressive is the fact that the ad was developed by two amateurs as part of a promotional contest.

In comparing and contrasting the results of our survey to the results of USA Today’s AdMeter, the only real consistency was that the Doritos “Snow Globe” spot captured the top position as the most popular ad.  The others in our list of “most popular” didn’t quite stack up against the results of the AdMeter findings.  The second most popular ad in our poll (E*TRADE “Babies”) was ranked 18th by USA Today.  Our third most popular spot (CareerBuilder.com’s “Hate Work”) finished 13th in the USA Today poll.

The “least favorite” ads from our poll offered more consistency when compared to the AdMeter findings.  The Vizio “HD TV” ad that just 6.6% of our students liked was apparently as unpopular among all consumer groups as it ranked last in USA Today’s poll.  The second least popular spot in our findings was the Toyota “Venza” ad.  The “Venza” ad was ranked third to last in the AdMeter findings.  H&R Block’s “Grim Reaper” ad shared a similar fate.  It was the third least popular ad in our survey while ranking 39th out of 50 in the USA Today poll.

Other Items of Interest

Several other interesting observations stood out while we evaluated the survey results. 

For the most part, the response on the GoDaddy ads was overwhelmingly negative.  Most schools either chose not to show the ads in class or viewed the ads in a negative light.  However, two schools offered a positive reaction to the ads with over 85% of their respective students suggesting they “liked” the ads.

The reaction to the Kellogg’s “Baseball” ad was also intriguing.  The ad was created to draw attention to a community relations campaign in which Kellogg’s communicated their plans to renovate local playing fields around the country.  Apparently the students surveyed were not impressed, with only 21.6% suggesting they liked the ad, 36.5% indicated a dislike for the ad (above the average score for the “dislike” category) while most (41.9%) had no opinion.

The third result we thought was interesting was the reaction to both the Sobe ad and Coca-Cola “Picnic” ad.  The students surveyed either really liked the ads or really disliked the ads, there didn’t appear to be any real middle ground.  For example, one school in Wisconsin had just one student who “liked” the Coke ad while 41 students “disliked” the ad.  Conversely, a school in Virginia had 15 students who “liked” the ad while only one student “disliked” the ad.  The Sobe ad garnered a similar response pattern.  One Oklahoma school did not manage a single student who “liked” the Sobe ad with 18 students suggested they “disliked” the ad.  Comparatively, a school in Virginia had 28 students who “liked” the ad and just 4 who said they “disliked” it. 

Conclusion

The goal of this survey was to provide those schools who participated with a means for energizing class discussions surrounding the Super Bowl ads while creating another forum for class discussions for all our readers.  Thank you again to all those students and teachers who participated.

*** Ideas for Classroom Discussion Questions ***

1) Do you feel like the results of the survey presented in this blog are consistent with the opinions of students in your class?  Have your students compare their opinions with the results of the survey.

2) Which advertisers during this year’s Super Bowl would consider students in your class as part of their target market? 

3) Based on feedback from your students and the results from our survey presented in this blog post, how effective were those advertisers in reaching their audience?

4) 77% of the classrooms surveyed suggested the ads inspired at least some students to purchase products with the most frequently mentioned product being Doritos.  Doritos had two of the five most popular ads among our survey participants.  Ask your students if they think this was a coincidence or if the ads were truly that effective.

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